Page 81 of Scars and Crowns

I stare. "You noticed my eyebrow?"

"I noticed everything." The words leave him so naturally I don't think he realises what he's admitted until a beat later. Neither of us speaks. My pulse stumbles strangely.

He clears his throat. "You were . . . predictable."

I recover first. "That's unfair."

"It was useful."

"I should've learned a completely different face."

"I would've respected the effort."

I laugh again, shaking my head. "Do you remember convincing me the old well was haunted?" I grin instantly. "Oh, God. You genuinely believed me."

"For a month."

"You were terrified."

"I was twelve."

"You were fourteen."

"I was impressionable."

"You cried."

"I most certainly did not."

"You absolutely cried."

"I object."

"You ran all the way back to the palace because you thought the royal treasurer's ghost was following you."

"I was exercising."

"Very quickly."

His laughter fills the room before mine joins it. After that the stories come easily. One memory unlocking another. The ribbon. The haunted well. The pigeons. The day we got trapped in the rain because we'd insisted we could outrun the monsoon clouds. The afternoon he climbed a mango tree purely because I'd declared he couldn't. Half the stories I'd forgotten completely until tonight. The other half I'd remembered differently.

Somewhere between the laughter and the teasing, the awkwardness quietly slips out of the room without either of us noticing.

It feels . . . Easy. The way it always used to. Like the last seven years briefly stopped existing. Eventually the conversation slows on its own. Yuvaan reaches over and switches off the overhead lights. Only the bedside lamp remains, casting a soft amber glow across the room. The shadows change everything. The laughter fades. Awareness takes its place.

We settle beneath the blanket, each staying carefully on our own side of the mattress. Neither of us crosses the invisible line between us. I stare up at the ceiling. The silence now feels different.

Heavier. Not uncomfortable. Just . . . Full.

I become painfully aware of everything. The quiet rhythm of his breathing. The faint scent of sandalwood from his soap. The warmth his body gives off even from several inches away. It feels impossible that someone can be this close without touching you.

"Anamika." His voice is quiet enough that I almost think I imagined it.

"Hm?" I turn my head. He's already looking at me. The lamplight softens the sharp lines of his face, leaving something thoughtful in their place. He looks like he's about to say something. Something important.

I wait. A second passes. Then another. Finally he exhales. " . . . Nothing." A tiny smile appears instead. "Goodnight, Daisy."

There's something unexpectedly tender about the way he says it. Like he's tucked an entire unfinished sentence inside those two words. I smile back before I can stop myself.